This invention relates to a device, and to a method of using the device, to improve blood flow to the heart muscles. When heart muscles are relatively speaking starved of blood, they are also starved of oxygen, which is carried to them by the blood flow. If a condition in which an inadequate blood flow occurs is allowed to continue to exist for any extended period of time, the heart muscles are in danger of rapid and severe damage, to a point which can be, or can become, life threatening. At present, the most often used therapy to alleviate such a condition is by-pass surgery. This procedure involves significant risk to the patient and is therefore not lightly undertaken.
This invention seeks to provide an alternative procedure whereby a blood flow can be established to the heart muscles directly. This procedure can be applied to the heart as part of cardiac surgery, when the chest cavity has been opened to provide direct access to the heart muscles. Alternatively, this procedure can be applied through the chest wall, with only a relatively small incision.
In outline, the irrigation device of this invention is somewhat similar to a small, open ended hollow rivet which has openings or perforations in its cylindrical side wall. By using an insertion device that is similar to a hypodermic syringe, the rivet is inserted into the heart muscle so that the closed end is more or less flush with the outside of the muscle, and the open end is located to receive aerated blood. The blood then flows to the heart muscle through the openings in the cylindrical wall.
Thus in a first embodiment this invention provides a heart muscle irrigation device comprising a hollow substantially cylindrical body having a first closed end and a second open end, the first and second ends each also including radially extending head members, and the cylindrical body having a plurality of radially oriented apertures there through, wherein the head members attached to both the first and the second ends are sufficiently flexible to be bent from a radially extending position, to a position substantially in line with the outside surface of the cylindrical hollow body.
In a second broad embodiment this invention comprises an insertion device for the heart irrigation device comprising a barrel having a first open end and a second end; flexible means attached to the second end which in a first closed position is adapted to penetrate a heart muscle to provide an opening, and which in a second open position allows passage of an irrigation device contained in the barrel; and plunger means inserted through the first open end of the barrel adapted to eject an irrigation device from the barrel and into engagement with an aperture in the heart muscle.
In a third broad embodiment this invention provides a method for improving blood flow to heart muscles comprising; providing an insertion device in the barrel of which a muscle irrigation device has been inserted with its open end toward the second end thereof, the internal diameter of the barrel being sized to accept the irrigation device with its head members bent from a radially extending position; inserting the second end of the insertion device into and through a selected heart muscle; and simultaneously ejecting the irrigation device through the second end of the insertion device, and withdrawing the insertion device, thus locating the irrigation device in the aperture created in the heart muscle by the insertion device.